Three point bridge question

[uwe]

Yes Tom, all these women have been lying to you all these years, there are different sizes.

[Dave W]

https://www.ebay.com/itm/304717503666

[Ken]

I never had a problem. Just use a skinny precision screwdriver.
Examples:




If it is long you can still get a good grip from the side of the string due to the small angle:

Just heed the warning.

[uwe]

"More importantly, it will also add Volume, Sustain and Tone!  Guaranteed!"

Take this with a grain of salt from the mod-bar ebay seller please. Yes, it affects the sound. It becomes "thuddier", denser. Whether you like that effect is entirely a matter of taste. Frankly, not the first thing I'd be looking on a Rumblecat of all basses (I have it on my Rumblecat as well, too lazy to remove it once I put it on, but I will most likely revert to the original state with the next change of strings).

Improvements in "volume, sustain and tone" are in the sphere of para-acoustics for bats.



I know, and you guys always wondered how sleeping bats did it without getting their fur wet. 

[morrow]

I'm fussy about note length , so I'm more concerned with clean muting than sustain. I rarely employ a physical mute though so it's hand or palm muting.

Sustain is highly over rated.

[uwe]

Not a TBird Rev or Ric 4001/4003 player this man.

Horses for courses. Sustain to me is everything. When I play mid-range to high register stuff, I tend to be melodic and slowish - lot's of full, half- and quarter notes - and not do quick runs, I then want my notes to ring endlessly and have this cello-like effect. And that is predominantly found on neck-thru and to some extent on set neck basses, rarely on bolt-ons.

I can appreciate a snappy sounding bass on paper (a G-3 or a single-coil Fender P), but my playing style is really geared towards more sustainy instruments and I find it frustrating if notes from the 12th fret upwards fade quickly. I go there a lot.

[TBird1958]

Not a TBird Rev or Ric 4001/4003 player this man.

Horses for courses. Sustain to me is everything. When I play mid-range to high register stuff, I tend to be melodic and slowish - lot's of full, half- and quarter notes - and not do quick runs, I then want my notes to ring endlessly and have this cello-like effect. And that is predominantly found on neck-thru and to some extent on set neck basses, rarely on bolt-ons.

I can appreciate a snappy sounding bass on paper (a G-3 or a single-coil Fender P), but my playing style is really geared towards more sustainy instruments and I find it frustrating if notes from the 12th fret upwards fade quickly. I go there a lot.

I call anything above the 12th fret "The undiscovered country" 

[uwe]

But there is real beauty there, Mark! Be unafraid.



What would Woman From Tokyo be without Glover's beautiful Ric 4001 notes at 03:08?



Or Sweet Child O' Mine without Duff's catchy signature entry?



Also a case in point how a bolt-on sounds up there. No cello effect. Still a great run.

[TBird1958]

  I freely admit to being more comfortable on the money frets! However, since getting the '64 I have been picking away at learning this.......It's good exercise!

[morrow]

I loved Cornick's playing. But By Aqualung I was out.

[uwe]

His successor never wrote a single bass line on his own! Jeffrey Hammond(-Hammond)'s often intricate lines all stemmed from either Ian Anderson or Martin Barre. Tull didn't have a bassist who wrote his own lines again until John Glascock joined after Minstrel in the Gallery and Hammond retired from making music to become a painter.

Incidentally, the album Stormwatch was recorded mostly with a 60ies TBird II Rev which Anderson himself owned (and played on the recording except for three tracks due to Glascock being put on gardening leave on account of his heart issues and life style) and adamantly referred to as "an old Gibson Firebird bass, a terrible, huge instrument with only one pick-up". Glascock can be seen with it in some TV shows from the time before, it was on loan from Ian. I wouldn't rule out that this was originally a band-owned instrument way back from the Glenn Cornick-days which he left behind in some storage.

[morrow]

I simply loved the melodic way Cornick could construct minor walks.

A thing of simple beauty , but deceptively intricate. He really was one of the greatest bassists of that day. Wonderful sense of movement.

[uwe]

I'd wager the guess that Ian Anderson wanted to assume more control of how the music was played as his compositions became more and more intricate. You couldn't tell someone like Glenn Cornick what to play. Jeffrey Hammond-Hammond certainly didn't get the job because he was the superior or more versatile player, but because - his first love being painted art - he didn't mind being told what to do on the bass (besides being easy to get along with).

There was a pattern - all the people from the first line-up rowed out by Anderson one after another - Abrahams: a blues guitarist, Cornick: a melodic and busy bassist, Bunker: a swinging drummer - were more idiosyncratic and less let's say impressionable players/willing to adjust their style to Anderson's whims than the people who followed them.

I'm a fan of the early line-ups too, they didn't yet sound as stiff and angular as Jethro Tull became in later configurations. I like Tull's later works too, but the music doesn't really groove and sounds incredibly (well-)rehearsed. Try dancing to Thick As A Brick, A Passion Play or War Child - you won't. But otoh: Anderson forged with Tull an absolutely exceptional sound that even though demanding won widespread appeal for a long time.

I actually like the bluesy-groovy debut and the glammy-dystopian-decadent War Child with all the Bowie'esque sax on it best. Aqualung (the album) seems overrated to me and it's not really a well-produced record - even after the more recent Steven Wilson remix, you can't polish a turd. (Jethro Tull diehards will no doubt despair upon reading this!)

[westen44]

Lars Ulrich thanking Jethro Tull for not releasing an album in 1992. 

[uwe]

Jethro Tull certainly had hard rock elements in their music and hard rock dynamics in their live shows - Anderson would always complain that "to rock up" their act was expected from them on the US arena circuit -, but calling them heavy metal was perhaps ever so slight an overstatement . 

I remember an Anderson announcement at a televised rock festival where JT were lumped together with ZZ Top, Status Quo, Joan Jett, Heart and Saxon in 1982. With the exception of Saxon none of them really a heavy metal act, but all offering a more immediate brand of rock (pre-AOR ballads Heart were perhaps closest to what Tull did, especially as regards the acoustic content). When JT did a few acoustic tracks, Anderson pointed to a mandolin and quipped sardonically: "Alas!, an innocent mandolin at this heavy metal outing? Bear with us, it's only a little guitar, but - deep breath - it does its best!"

But the JT live experience (it was the very theatrical Broadsword tour with the pirate ship on stage etc) could hold its ground even before a largely hard and heavy rock audience. There was enough for the denim brigade to latch on to plus Anderson is a captivating front man. There is a reason why a lot of heavy metal musicians hold JT in high regard and the sometimes convoluted meters and highly structured song parts have left their mark on bands as diverse as Iron Maiden, Dream Theater, Opeth, System of a Down and even Slipknot.